Fun with Cousins

After our return from Mariachi tour 3 of Jaden's cousins came to stay at Grandma's house for the weekend. We tried to help out a little bit in the entertainment department and ended up having a ton of fun!

Adventure #1 - Bowling!

Getting our bowling shoes on

Bethany strutting her stuff

Waiting for the balls to come back up

Abigail discovering the fun of the ball ramp (to help the smaller kids actually get the ball all the way down the alley)

Jaden thought it was pretty cool too

hilarious actually!

and after each roll he would sprawl out for what must have been the best view of the ball heading down to the pins (or water bottles - as he called them)

Adventure #2 - Jungle Jaks

Jungle Jaks was a cool indoor park sort of place complete with places for kids to climb, run, jump, and play.

there was the foam factory where you could send foam balls up through tubes and shoot them through the big guns in a dodgeball type war

lots of places to climb and big slides.

They also have a toddler section,

where a train lover like Jaden just hung out and played with the Thomas Train table

an art section where kids can create cool things to take home,

Bethany painting her ceramic figure

Abi & Jaden painting with stencils

This was Jaden's first time with paints. He LOVED it so I think we're going to have to figure out how to do this in a "mess controlled" way at home!

see that concentration!

a beauty parlor where you can dress up or get makeup and hair done,

Abigail the princess

Bethany choosing her makeup and "glitter tattoo"

cute!

Abigail getting her hair done

(I hear she wouldn't let her mom take it out until it all fell out over 3 days later!)

bumper boats,

and a few Wii games to play with! (we didn't get that far!)

Of course, like any good business, only certain things come WITH your entrance fee, the rest (and of course the most desirable) require purchasing additional tickets.

We had a lot of fun - and learned a few lessons along the way.

So, after me realizing that girls really are very different to reason with, engage, and encourage than boys (and older kids require a much different strategy than a 2 yr old with an amazingly long attention span)

AND a few lessons in "managing your tickets"

AND a few meltdowns over "why you can't do more of certain activities after you chose to use your tickets elsewhere"

AND discussions about "why it might not be nice to swangle your 4 year old sister out of one of her tickets so you can buy something you could have had BEFORE you used some of your tickets on something else"

we all had a lot of fun!